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One time, maybe 25 years ago, at Knoedler Gallery I was passing for a photo with stablemate Salvador Dali when Victor Hammer, my dealer, came charging over and orders, “LeRoy (put your cigar away!) get rid of the cigar! and Dali intervenes “NO, keep cigar, good props!”
The cigar is was likeness (at 25) as was the mustache. I developed both needs as a teenager. It aided to (a) visage that needed help. I cringe at the thought of my face naked.
Another element that makes a successful portrait is life and expression.
I remember when I painted a posthumous portrait of an NFL football coach who was being memorialized at the Banquet at the Waldorf. At the last minute a photo of the diseased was messenger[?] requesting I do a portrait for that next evening. I did it overnight. Next morning Mother, who was in my studio, peers at the work and immediately blurts out “That man looks embalmed.”
(Painting a portrait is always touchy)
(THIS SELF PORTRAIT WAS DONE AS I BELIEVE I LOOKED 25 years ago. FLAUNTING WITH THE SAME PROPS. I WONDER IF I (EVER) LOOKED SO GOOD)